“We said, we did" – final evaluation report from Islington Making it Real

The Making it Real programme has been a shared effort across social care and health. Voluntary sector partners have been well represented on our Board and with our Experts by Experience at the heart of the programme, our approach is based on genuine co-production and power sharing at the most senior level.

The Making it Real Islington Action Plan, which we co-produced, was the centrepiece of the programme and it sets out our commitment to make services more personalised in Islington.

As part of this evaluation report, we reviewed our approach to Making it Real, and assessed the wider impact of the programme.

We found the following:

Co-production as an approach has been widely adopted among Making it Real Board members and partner organisations.

Islington’s corporate plan includes a clear commitment to co-production across the council.

The Experts by Experience are having an impact on changing organisational culture, in particular in how staff relate to the people who use services.

Experts by Experience have benefitted in knowledge, skills, confidence and increased capacity and motivation to be part of and lead change.

Making it Real’s achievements represent the start of a journey towards a new way of working for Islington. We look forward to continuing to work together and maintaining the connections from our Making it Real journey. This will be achieved through the launch and development of our new Islington Centre for Inclusive Living (CIL) in late 2016. The CIL aligns directly with the legacy of the Making it Real Board and it will build on the local and existing peer support carried out by the Islington Personal Budgets Network to help people tackle challenges they face across health and social care.